If Ever I Would Leave You
by Little Kate
Summary: T.J. has finally decided to ask the most important question in his life. (Songfic)


If Ever I Would Leave You  
By Little Kate

A/N: The song is "If Ever I Would Leave You" and its most popular version is sung by Robert Goulet (Mikey's singing voice in the Recess series) for the musical "Camelot". This piece is special to me because my choir learned an arrangmenet of this piece when I was in high school.

-

If ever I would leave you  
_It wouldn't be in summer  
__Seeing you in summer  
__I never would go  
__Your hair streaked with sunlight  
__Your lips red as flame  
__Your face with a luster  
__That puts gold to shame_

TJ Detweiler had never known nervousness until he decided to ask Ashley Spinelli to marry him. Looking at the simple gold band he'd purchased, he realized that nothing in his life – not one thing – had prepared him to ask her.

Part of his problem was that Ashley Spinelli wasn't a normal woman. She wasn't the type of woman whose anger could be easily dissapated by a dozen red roses, and her favor certainly couldn't be brought the same way. She wasn't a woman who wanted to be led around for the rest of her life. She wanted to make her own life. She was proud of herself. Maybe too proud to be somebody's wife.

TJ sighed as he closed the ring box and set it on his nightstand. It was early Friday evening, and the campus was buzzing in anticipation of the weekend. Somewhere on the floor above him, Ashley was waiting for him. He was already five minutes late. "Okay, Teej, you can do this. It's just as easy as asking her out on a date."

But he knew that nothing, especially not asking for his love's hand in marriage, was that easy.

Grabbing the box, he slid it into his coat pocket and left his dorm room. "The worst she can say is 'no'," he mused as he climbed the stairwell to the dormitory's second floor. Somehow the thought of Ashley turning him down failed to comfort him.

He slowed his steps, stalling. He'd rehearsed in the shower how he planned to ask her, and he realized as he rehearsed that it was not a question to take lightly. "Marry me, Ashley" sounded too much like a demand; and "Will you be my wife?" was far too condescending. Eventually he'd settled on the traditional "Will you marry me?", but he knew that something wasn't quite right.

Marriage was more than just getting married, anyway, TJ thought. He didn't want to marry her just to marry her – she had to know that she meant more to him than anything.

_  
But if I'd ever leave you  
__It couldn't be in autumn  
__How I'd leave in autumn  
__I've seen how you sparkle  
__When fall nips the air  
__I know you in autumn  
__And I must be there_

Walking the hall to her room, TJ clutched the box in his coat pocket and thought back on everything that had led him to this point in his life. It was honestly hard for him to remember a time when Ashley hadn't been there. Now both twenty-two and less than a year away from graduating college, he and Ashley had been dating since they were freshmen in high school. But more than that, she'd been one of his best friends since he was five, and she'd been the love of his life since he was about twelve.

TJ had been dreaming of this very day, of asking Ashley to marry him, for a decade.

He shook his head slightly and raised his other hand to knock on her dorm room door. They'd had their rough spots, as all couples do, but somehow the best seemed to come out of the bad. TJ's philosophy had always been that however bad life with Ashley got, life without her had to be worse. It had kept him strong even through the worst of times – fights, emotional breakdowns, the deaths of loved ones…

"Hey, Teej." Ashley's voice broke him from his thoughts. She looked beautiful, as always, but of course he would never tell her that for fear of a black eye. She hadn't changed much over their lives – still as rough and tough as always.

"Ready?" he asked her as she closed her dorm room door behind her.

"For a date with you? Never," she teased.

Her demeanor, her joking attitude, made TJ smile, as it almost always did. She had a way of making even the cloudiest days seem bright. Sometimes he wondered if he'd still even be alive without her.

He took her hand in his as they walked down the hall. His other hand was clasped tightly around the small velvet box.  
_  
_

_And could I leave you running merrily through the snow?  
__Or on a wintry evening when you catch the fire's glow?_

The restaurant was a small bistro off campus, one of their favorites. It was nothing extraordinary – nothing to make Ashley suspect the plan that TJ was running through in his mind. He'd been deeply tempted to take her to a dress-up, four-star restaurant for the big question – at least until he realized that she would appriciate a proposal that was more sincere than staged.

Watching her across the table, TJ was convinced he'd never seen anything more beautiful. She was a real woman now, as much as she tried to hide beneath tomboy-ish clothes and a façade of unbreakable toughness. Her shiny black hair was to her elbows, long and straight, and she didn't groom it to within an inch of its life like most girls did. Her figure had filled out, leaving her to stand at a respectable 5'6", with a body that got her whistles when she passed men on campus. But her face – her face was still the face of the young girl TJ had fallen in love with years ago.

Ashley was engaging, as usual, talking animatedly about the small bits of her life that TJ wasn't there to witness. The long and tiring chemistry lab, the excellent criminal justice lecture… TJ listened to it all, trying to keep focused. But the nerves were starting to creep up from the pit of his stomach to his throat, and if he didn't ask her soon he knew the nervousness might steal his ability to speak.

They ordered and ate. They talked. And TJ stalled. He had had several opportunities to ask her, but the moment never seemed right.

He still held tightly onto the little velvet box.

If ever I would leave you  
_How could it be in springtime  
__Knowing how in spring  
__I'm bewitched by you so?_

Instead of creeping up on him until he almost missed it, the moment instead very nearly smacked TJ full in the face. Over the restaurant's radio, a song from TJ's dreams began to play. He knew the song well, hummed the melody to himself often. He and Ashley had even slow-danced to it at their senior prom. The lyrics said everything about how he felt about Ashley – how much he loved her, how he could never leave her.

The instant he saw the recognition pass over her face, TJ knew it was the moment. "I'll never leave you," he said softly, taking her hands in his and gazing deeply into her eyes.

"Oh yeah?" she asked, raising her eyebrows and smiling playfully.

"I can even prove it," he answered, taking the ring from the box and sliding it onto her finger. Her perfect mouth dropped open in awe as she stared at the delicate gold band.

A thousand conflicting emotions ate at TJ from the inside out, like hungry sharks in a tiny tank. Did she like it? Was his proposal too stupid? _Would she even say yes!_

After a few moments – a short eternity to TJ – she raised her eyes to his and spoke. "TJ," she said, her voice soft, "I'll never leave you. I can even prove it."

The next thing TJ knew was that his lips were on Ashley's and they were kissing deeply, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck. "Yes, TJ Detweiler," she said, eyes full of emotion, "my answer is yes."

Oh, no, not in springtime, summer, winter or fall  
_No never could I leave you at all_

_-_

This piece is dedicated to the man who will recognize this song best when sung by a young Midwestern girl, who deserved so much better from me than what I gave him – the man I loved once upon a time, and the man that I still love, after all this time. You may never know what you've done for me, but I hope someday I get another chance to say I'm sorry and to tell you what a difference you have made, and I hope I get a chance to thank you for teaching a simple girl what it feels like to fall in love. –Kate.


End file.
